The Mind of Christ

Jesu Juva

Philippians 2:5-11                                                                 

April 10, 2022

Palm/Passion Sunday                                                     

Dear saints of our Savior~

          Medical technology has advanced to such a degree that there’s virtually no part of your body that can’t be replaced.  Your most important parts can be swapped out for new parts.  Even vital organs—lungs, livers, kidneys and hearts—are successfully transplanted into needy recipients almost every day.

          But one thing we will never see is a brain transplant.  Your mind is uniquely yours.  You can swap out any number of other body parts.  And other parts, like gall bladders, are expendable.  But you and your mind are inseparable.  When the brain does malfunction, all we can do is treat the malady and medicate the mind.  What’s the biggest problem with your brain?  Mental illness, epilepsy, and Alzheimer’s are some big brain problems.

          But where our minds fail us most is nothing medical.  Our biggest brain problem is not that we’re deficient in math or reading comprehension or even IQ.  Our minds can sometimes supply the right answers; but when it comes to living right and doing right, the brain you were born with is useless.  When it comes to loving God and loving your neighbor, your mind is a vast wasteland.  Because your brain only cares about you.  You are all that matters to your mind. 

          What you need is another mind.  What you need is the mind of Christ.  That’s the upshot of Philippians chapter two:  Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus.  The old King James Version translates it this way:  Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.  In other words, think like Jesus.  Have the mind of the Messiah.  At first, this just sounds like good advice.  “Be more like Jesus.  Make your mind more like His.”  Who can argue with that? 

          But then Paul beautifully unpacks just what he means by the “mind” of Christ; and it turns out that our minds and the mind of Christ have absolutely nothing in common.  His gray matter and our gray matter are two entirely different substances.  The mind of Christ led Him always to be concerned about others—serving them and helping them.  And in the process, though He was God, He made Himself nothing.  Literally, He “emptied” Himself—poured Himself out entirely in service to others.  Whether it was washing the dirty, stinky feet of His disciples, or having mercy on men with leprosy, or confronting demons or feeding thousands or forgiving the sins of broken-hearted sinners—never once did the Savior say, “I’m tired.  Go away.  I’m busy.  Come back tomorrow.  I need time for me.”  He made Himself nothing.  He became the servant of servants.  He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.  Behold the mind of Christ.

          Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.  Beloved in the Lord, if you think this text is simply saying, “Be more like Jesus,” you’re missing something.  If you think this text means asking “What would Jesus do?” and then doing it for the rest of your life, prepare to be disappointed.  You’d have better luck if you volunteered for a brain transplant.  As sinners, we don’t have what it takes to do what Jesus would do.  If we have to figure it out and do it ourselves, it will not get done.

          As we begin another Holy Week today, God is giving you so much more than a command to try harder to be more like His Son.  What God gives you today is a reality—a miracle, really.  It’s the brain transplant you’ve always dreamed of!  A mind-meld with the Messiah!  It is the mind of Christ—in you.  It is the attitude of Christ Jesus shaping your attitudes.  It is the servanthood of the Savior serving others through you—through your hands and your feet and your mind.  Let this mind (the mind of Christ) be in you.

          How can it be that sinners like us who are always trying to be God in the place of God—who don’t know the first thing about service and sacrifice—can suddenly see the crying needs of those around us . . . and do something about it?  How can it be that sinners like us who naturally view ourselves as the smartest people in the room can suddenly see others as better than ourselves?  How can it be that sinners like us who can’t be even mildly inconvenienced without complaining and grumbling can suddenly suffer great loss with quiet humility?  How?  It is the mind of Christ—in you—working a radical transformation.  Your mind is decreasing; the mind of Christ is increasing—in you.

          The mind of Christ cannot be understood apart from the cross of Christ.  But at the cross the mind of Christ is made perfectly clear for all.  There at the cross the mind of Christ is displayed and dissected and diagrammed for dying sinners.  There we see Jesus as your sin-bearing servant.  All the sinful schemes ever

hatched and carried out by your warped brain were laid upon Jesus.  All the devious, deviant decisions conceived in your criminal mind were attributed to Him.  He was made to be your sin.  And all that He suffered—the betrayal, the beating, the blood—all this was God’s deliberate plan to save you—to redeem you and to restore in you the mind of Christ.  Jesus humbled Himself and became obedient to death because that was the only way—the only way that God could make rebels into His children, and to resurrect brain-dead sinners with the merciful mind of Christ.

          Your life is now hidden with Christ.  Or, to flip that around, the life of Christ is now hidden in you.  His mind, His humility, His servanthood—it’s all mysteriously at work in you.  For all of you who were baptized into Christ are now clothed with Christ.  As baptized children of God, every day we repent of our sins.  The Old Adam in us is drowned and dies, and a new man emerges to live before God in righteousness and purity.  And that new man inside of you—well, he looks and acts surprisingly like Jesus.  Today’s text ultimately isn’t about us doing what Jesus would do.  No, the Christian life is really about Christ’s doing and Christ’s working in you and through you, guiding, directing and providing you with strength and humility to love God and serve your neighbor.  As Paul wrote to the Galatians, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me” (2:20).

          As you draw on the nourishment of His living Word, as you eat and drink His life-giving body and blood, the life of Jesus Himself pulses within you.  The attitude of Christ becomes your attitude.  The very mind of Christ dwells in you.  Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus.

          You can draw strength and energy from the mind of Christ especially on those days when you’re tired—so tired of giving and giving and giving, and getting absolutely nothing in return—when everybody else is in crisis and there’s no one to hear your complaint—when it seems that everyone is taking advantage of you—maybe even the members of your own family.  This mind of Christ shows itself in you when you’re so weary of serving others and when you’ve emptied yourself of every last ounce of compassion and good will—when it seems like the perfect time to get assertive and aggressive and start telling everybody else where to get off.  What should you do?

          You simply let the Jesus in you do His thing.  Let go—let God—let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.  We don’t like that answer by nature.  It’s not fair for me to give and give while others just take and take.  “What’s in it for me?” we ask.  But that’s not the mind of Christ.  The mind of Christ wants to know: Who needs me?  Who has God placed in my life who needs my service and my sacrifice and my love?  You won’t have to look too far or wait too long to find out exactly who that is.

          What is it about your life that you find most draining?  Who empties you of all the care and compassion you can muster?  What cross do you find most difficult to bear?  A woman on safari in Africa once stopped at a primitive hospital for lepers.  The heat was intense.  The stench was stifling.  The flies were buzzing.  The woman on safari noticed a nurse who was bending down in the dirt, tending to the pus-filled sores and lesions of a dying man.  The woman remarked, “You know, I wouldn’t do that for all the money in the world.”  To which the nurse gently replied, “Neither would I.”  Because, you see, she had the mind of Christ—who came not to be served, but to serve and to give His life as a ransom for many.  And with the mind of Christ comes the heart of Christ, the hands of Christ, the eyes of Christ, the compassion of Christ. 

          Beloved in the Lord, this mind is also in you.  In you Jesus Himself is hard at work, until that day when at His name every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. 

          In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.